Among the Men is AprilBy Logo Wei
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Among the men is April seen passing
mug
after bottle after mug
in pants that are black as pianos
and an apron that circles her like an equation.
The men see
that her smile is a warm democracy,
that her freckles are a photonegative chart to the stars,
that her ears are coliseums,
that her collarbones are the low tide,
that her hair is an étude,
that her cheeks are hotels,
that her wrists are avenues,
that her palms are two good theories,
that her tattoos are an answer,
that her elbows are gold coins,
that her eyes are nozzles,
that her synapses are sheet music,
that her throat is a sugar cane,
that her blood is an ovation,
that her hips are the morning sky,
that her nose is a revolver,
that her shoulders are anthologies,
that her spine is gasoline.
In a sort of silence that hovers,
yes hovers,
the men hope that because
it is a topsail, she will gather down her apron for them, that because
it is a clock she will lift the hem of her shirt for them, that
she will show her stomach to be a scented candle, her
bralette to be a discotheque, her
ribs to be so many senses of duty, her
breasts to be planets, her
lungs to be villages, her
tongue to be a glacier, her
pudenda to be a chapter, her
waist to be a magic trick, her
slight height to be the force that moves the continents, her
skin to be rye, her
heart to be a sweetly brutal mythology.
The men tilt themselves to her,
and bend their language to her,
and tenderize their consonants for her,
and forfeit their eyes to the field of her gravity,
and imagine
mug
after bottle after mug
in pants that are black as pianos
and an apron that circles her like an equation.
The men see
that her smile is a warm democracy,
that her freckles are a photonegative chart to the stars,
that her ears are coliseums,
that her collarbones are the low tide,
that her hair is an étude,
that her cheeks are hotels,
that her wrists are avenues,
that her palms are two good theories,
that her tattoos are an answer,
that her elbows are gold coins,
that her eyes are nozzles,
that her synapses are sheet music,
that her throat is a sugar cane,
that her blood is an ovation,
that her hips are the morning sky,
that her nose is a revolver,
that her shoulders are anthologies,
that her spine is gasoline.
In a sort of silence that hovers,
yes hovers,
the men hope that because
it is a topsail, she will gather down her apron for them, that because
it is a clock she will lift the hem of her shirt for them, that
she will show her stomach to be a scented candle, her
bralette to be a discotheque, her
ribs to be so many senses of duty, her
breasts to be planets, her
lungs to be villages, her
tongue to be a glacier, her
pudenda to be a chapter, her
waist to be a magic trick, her
slight height to be the force that moves the continents, her
skin to be rye, her
heart to be a sweetly brutal mythology.
The men tilt themselves to her,
and bend their language to her,
and tenderize their consonants for her,
and forfeit their eyes to the field of her gravity,
and imagine
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that her bareness will be an ark, that her knees will be locomotives, that her bald armpits will be jazz, that her arms will be treaties, that her navel will be a cosmos, that her hair will be an étude, that her fingernails will be the turning of the sun, that her spine will be gasoline, that her smile will be a warm democracy,
that she will have no scars, no ten-year assemblage of cigarette burns |
from knees to nipples from Robbie,
that April was not one cool April born Robbie.
that April was not one cool April born Robbie.
Logo Wei and spouse live in the upper Midwest with their puckish quadruped. Logo has worked with patients, students and those enduring homelessness. Logo writes (and bakes and bikes) as solacing means of existence. His poetry has appeared or will appear in Pedestal Magazine, Parhelion, Ink & Voices, Levee Magazine, Panoply, and others.